1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method of and apparatus for protecting data in a data storage system, and more particularly, to a method of securely erasing data recorded on a storage medium while preventing data leakage, and a hard disk drive using the method.
2. Description of Related Art
A hard disk drive is a type of a data storage device that contributes to the operation of a computer system by reproducing data from a disc, or writing data on a disk using a magnetic head. Current hard disk drives are compact, have a high capacity and density, and are widely used as a data storage system.
In a conventional technique, a host system transmits security commands such as security-lock, security-unlock, and security-erase commands, together with associated passwords, to a hard disk drive. The hard disk drive determines whether the received password matches a previously stored password. If the passwords match, the hard disk drive executes the security commands. However, the password is transmitted via a bus, and may be intercepted and hacked by using a bus monitoring tool. Therefore, there is a demand for greater password security.